It’s one thing to say that there will be contributions from users in the heart of Silicon Valley and 20 miles from the USGS Western Regional headquarters. But here, thanks to an easy-to-use and well known IT system, there are more than 600 reports from 170 towns a continent away from USGS and its nominal territory of concern.

(This obviously works better in densely populated foreign areas. There are no responses yet for the 7.0 earthquake in the Kuril Islands NE of Japan.)

Still, this appears to offer an example of building a global brand — for one organization to offer a global clearinghouse for compiling UGC, leveraging economies of scale and network effects by offering one-stop shopping.